As soon as Zevran and Rhodri were approaching the door into the room meant to afford them a little privacy, Avernus called out after them.
"Not a step further, you two!" he shouted. As Rhodri spun them around on her heel, they caught the cantankerous Magewarden glaring at them.
"I know what you're up to," Avernus pointed an accusing finger at them. "There's a hundred years' worth of research notes in that office, and I will not have an amorous pair ruining them with bodily secretions and emissions!"
A scarlet-faced Rhodri, eyes almost falling out of her head, let out a tiny, choked, 'Eep!' Her shoulders drew up into her neck, and with Zevran still held close to her body, she curled into herself like a hedgehog. Zevran stifled an unseemly laugh and eased himself out of her arms. He took her by the hand and gave it a gentle tug.
"A little fresh air, mi sol," he crooned in a half-suggestion half-request, pointing his nose at the exit. Zevran swallowed down another cackle as Rhodri gave a weak nod, offered him her arm, and escorted him in a shambling gait.
"And don't even think about trying anything in the storage locker out there!" Avernus yelled after them. Rhodri squeaked again, pulled her hood up, and hid her head under her free arm, addressing Zevran from under several layers of fabric as they stepped outside into the freezing midday air.
"I think I'm going to have to quit pleasure, kissing, and everything else," she croaked miserably.
Zevran chuckled and nodded. "Very well. Remind me, by the way, of the longest you have managed to go without 'pleasure, kissing, and everything else' since becoming a Warden?"
A single, grey eye came into view now as Rhodri's arm shifted, and the gaze of said eye moved in a little triangle on Zevran's cheek.
"... About ten hours," she finally said with a sigh. "This abstinence business isn't going to go well, is it?"
"I doubt it very much." He winked, adding, "But you know, I have an excellent cure for abstinence."
Rhodri moved her arm off the rest of her face and watched Zevran in a frown. "... There's a cure for abst–? Oh." Her eyes widened; a wicked grin quickly followed.
Zevran snickered. "Put yourself in my capable hands, my darling, and you'll be saying much more than 'Oh.'"
"Hah," she pulled the hood away and shook her head. "Well, I suppose that's my self-imposed celibacy over. How long was that?"
"About two minutes."
"Incredible. It lasted longer than I usually do."
"Rhodri!"
§
The party's second attempt to seal the Veil was laughably simple, and completely permanent. That was probably for the best; Levi Dryden, when startled even slightly, now threw anything in his hands at the source of the surprise. A single difficult encounter more would unquestionably have led to his death– if not from his heart simply giving out, then from Morrigan electrocuting him when the next piece of buttered toast was accidentally flung her way.
As it was, very few demons turned up for round two, and Avernus played his modest part with next to no distractions. Afterward, he had declared to the unimpressed non-mage onlookers that the simple handful of gestures he made belied two centuries of research into the sanguineous sciences, but Zevran suspected that Rhodri or Morrigan could have done it after reading a page of his journal. The true hard work had been destroying the throngs of demons who had been lurking by the tear the first time around, and reducing the traffic in that region of the Fade to next-to-nothing. Which, of course, was a point in time where Avernus was inconveniently yet to be discovered. Zevran privately pooh-poohed the blood mage as a workshy curmudgeon whose sole saving grace was in the fabulously long lifespan he was about to give the Wardens– and then, Maker willing, Zevran.
Alistair appeared to have been unaware of an impending collaboration with Avernus. How, Zevran couldn't imagine; the Templar had heard and lividly reacted to Rhodri's promise to afford the fellow every assistance in his unsanctioned endeavours. Had Alistair thought, perhaps, that a few angry words and a reproachful glare would be enough to dissuade someone from pursuing a cure for a wretched, fast-approaching end? Indeed, had he forgotten that he , too, faced the same end and would hugely benefit from this?
It had seemed so, given the way Alistair had taken to reprimanding Rhodri (and Avernus) every few steps as the party ambled back from the now-mended Veil to Avernus' workshop.
"I just– ugh," Alistair pinched his brow with his fingers. "I never believed you'd get into this sort of stuff, Rhod. It's dangerous, you know? Morally wrong, too."
Leliana, whose admonishments for Avernus' practices had notably disappeared after hearing about the typical future of an uncured Grey Warden, now stared straight ahead with her lips sealed. Alistair turned to his lover expectantly; she said nothing.
"Right, Lels?" he prompted gently.
In an uncharacteristic display of guilt, Leliana's gaze dropped to the floor. When the silence grew asphyxiating, she finally offered, "Well, it might not be all bad…"
Alistair did such a double-take that his head nearly followed through on the motion, unscrewed, and fell off altogether.
"What?" he yelped.
"Well– oh Alistair, be reasonable!" Leliana clucked her tongue exasperatedly, "They were at the ends of their lives, and wouldn't their deaths be in vain if Avernus did not use his knowledge to help other Wardens?"
His eyes screwed shut. "Oh, not you, too…"
An awkward moment passed as Alistair, now scraping the very bottom of the barrel as far as support went, quickened his pace until he appeared at Zevran's left (Leliana rolled her eyes at this).
"You don't agree, Zev, do you?" Alistair urged, watching him pleadingly.
There was no denying it: Alistair was exceptionally good at making a kicked-puppy face. He had huge eyes the colour of burnt honey, and could widen them and flutter his long lashes sufficiently that even the hardest of hearts liquefied, and his brows knitted in that un-selfconsciously doleful manner that only survived to adulthood in the most irremediably sensitive children. But Zevran was a bastard of a man who was wholly immune to such things. In fact, all he could do was ponder the irony that Alistair seemed unaware of how he towered over Zevran, a short man by many metrics, while fixing him with that little-boy pout.
Zevran barely got a fraction of the way through a shrug (he supposed he had to answer at some point) before Alistair stopped walking and made such a loud groan that his head tipped back from the force of it. Smirking, Zevran turned on his heel to walk backwards so that he faced Alistair. There was a slight delay between turning and addressing the Templar; Rhodri had barely taken her eyes off Zevran after his mortifying display earlier, and, seemingly alarmed by the sudden change in his direction, was giving him a once-over before he could finish moving her hand from his right one into the left one. Said lover was assuaged with a kiss to the palm and an eyebrow waggle; her concerned frown softened into a curious frown. Sighing for reasons unknown and not worth investigating, Zevran finished turning and raised an eyebrow at Alistair.
"Well, my friend," he wobbled his head noncommittally, "Leliana does have a point. And think of it! A long and happy old age for Wardens who have served the cause. Is that not appealing?"
"Not through blood magic," Alistair insisted. "There are some things you just don't do, and blood magic is one of them. Avernus' research never should've gotten this far!"
Zevran shrugged again. "That is beside the point now, though, surely. It is here, and your chance to benefit fast approaches."
From beside Rhodri, Avernus creaked out a laugh.
"What?" Alistair snapped at him. "What're you cackling about like an old chicken?"
"Your nerve is remarkable, young man, given what I could do to you," Avernus replied drolly. "But no matter. It may interest some of you," he shot Rhodri a meaningful look that, of course, went unnoticed by the intended recipient, "I already have some things that can benefit the Wardens, provided they are of a mind to receive them."
Zevran forbade himself from letting his smile broaden further as Rhodri hurriedly assured Avernus, to Alistair's open disgust, that she was more than ready to receive whatever he was willing to give.
"Good," Avernus said, and pointed at the door ahead of them leading into his workshop. "In which case, let us not delay any further."
At this point, Sten and Shale turned on their heels and marched back in the direction of the party camp, taking Jeppe with them. Levi, after a short but intense spate of alternating glances at the departing and the remaining, excused himself and hurried after the former of the two.
Inside the workshop, Avernus took a seat at his desk and watched Rhodri, in particular.
"I want something from you first," he said to her, "Rhodri, was it? I seem to remember hearing that as your name."
"Call me Severin, if you please," Rhodri inclined her head politely (and, naturally, missed the puzzled glances from Zevran, Leliana, and Alistair that followed).
Avernus nodded. "As you like. Well, Severin, to keep the explanation quick, I need fresh Warden blood for my continued— you could at least let me finish, you know!" He frowned at Rhodri, who was striding over to him with a dagger in her hand, preparing to plunge it, so far as Zevran could tell, into her hand. "Have you no interest in academic pursuits?"
"I have plenty of interest," Rhodri answered simply, "but you didn't tell me when to do it, so I thought you meant now."
"Put that knife away, I'll take the blood when I am finished talking. Maker's breath, but the youth of today… in any case, fresh Warden blood will aid my research." He shrugged, "I suspect it will aid my health somewhat, too. My time is short. I suspect little can be done to fix that, but a small infusion might mitigate the worst of it."
"Your time is short?" Rhodri cocked her head and ran her eyes over him. "The Taint is overwhelming the effects of the spell? Or the old blood is no good?"
Avernus shook his head, "I suspect the spell itself is losing efficacy over time. Why, I cannot say. At a guess, it is a mixture of old age and, yes, the Taint. It does not affect regular magic, but as it accumulates in the blood, I believe it crowds out the life force that allows the spell to be cast and take root in the body."
"Teach me to cast it, then."
"Stop it, Rhodri," Alistair spoke up angrily. "I am not joking." He stood between her and Avernus, the latter of whom was chuckling away behind him, and watched her with another of those doe-eyed beseeching looks. "I know it's hard to accept the effects of the Taint, but this isn't the way to go. You believe in doing the right thing, I know you do."
Rhodri shrugged. "You and I have different ideas of what's morally wrong if you think it unforgivable to use blood magic to treat the Taint, amicus."
"You didn't seem so keen on blood magic when we were in the Circle, did y–? Oh, don't look all angry at me," he quickly held up his hands as Rhodri drew herself up to her full height, "You and I both know that that could have been avoided if Uldred hadn't dabbled in blood magic!"
Zevran and Leliana shared a worried look. With a nod, each hurried over to their respective lover.
"Don't, cher," Leliana murmured, taking his hand in hers and kneading it forcefully.
"Leli– I– it's wrong! It's dangerous and wrong!" Alistair threw his unoccupied hand in Rhodri's direction, which Leliana quickly snapped up and sandwiched with the other hand. "We just sealed the Veil! What's going to happen if Rhodri gets overwhelmed and becomes an abomination? The bloody place will be swarmed!"
Rhodri, whose jaw was now so clenched that the fibres of her chewing muscles were visible through her cheeks, let out a slow, deep breath.
"You didn't seem so bothered when it was Jowan saving your nephew, Alistair–" she began, only for Alistair to cut her off.
"That was different, and you know it. Connor could've died at any minute, Rhod! We have ten years!"
Rhodri's nostrils flared. "I'm not sure how you have missed my stance on blood magic, given how open I've been about it, but let me reiterate it so you're left in no doubt.
"I have no problem with mages practicing blood magic, provided they do it safely, with the proper education, and with respect for life. I have no problem with learning enough of it to have a reasonable lifespan after having been conscripted into the Wardens against my will. In fact, if I can learn even more than the basics, I will. And finally, I have absolutely no problem doing all of this if it means I have a better chance of killing this Archdemon and leaving this hideous, backwards pit of a country to go home to my family," she took a step toward Alistair, her voice climbing to a shout, "which is where Magister Hereditas Callistus Severin ought to be right-fucking-now!
Zevran bit back a stupid grin; watching someone getting their arse chewed out by Rhodri was never not delicious, even if it was Alistair– but, of course, it didn't pay to broadcast one's enjoyment of such events. Leliana had looked on with a sympathetic wince, and Morrigan and Avernus shared an eyeroll. In fact, so identical were their expressions that Zevran couldn't help but wonder if Avernus might have sired the witch. It seemed highly unlikely, if the demons prevented him from leaving– unless, of course, Flemeth had had a brief stint in the area as a door-to-door saleswoman some thirty years prior. If anyone could cut through the waves of undead and demons to reach the front door of the Peak, it was her.
Such musings were rendered moot as Rhodri further advised Alistair (albeit a little less volubly now) that he was perfectly within his rights to call for her ousting as leader if he felt like it, and that he knew the protocol through which to proceed if that was the case. Alistair responded by shaking his head and, when Leliana once again failed to prop him up with the support to which he had become accustomed, announced he would depart for the party camp. Without another word, he stormed out of the workshop, slamming the door behind him as he went.
There was no time for a moment of any degree of awkwardness to emerge, because Avernus was already up and moving toward the remainers.
"Well," he said disdainfully, "I suppose that thins the herd somewhat. A pity, he was a juicy fellow…" Avernus shrugged with one shoulder and gestured at Rhodri. "Well, Severin, your moment has come. If you'll roll up your sleeve, we can get started. Better to draw the blood straight from an artery instead of a hand… less damaging to surrounding tissue and saves on clean-up."
"Roll up my–?" Rhodri frowned. "Do you have anywhere private to do this?"
Avernus watched Rhodri with a raised eyebrow. "They're not still puritanical about that sort of thing in Tevinter, are they?"
"We are, myself included," she gave a brief nod.
"Maker, what a headache that all was. Leaving was one of the smarter things I've done…" With a wave of his hand, Avernus cast a charm that frosted over every window in the place, and briefly tapping his staff on the ground saw bright blue glyphs appear over the doors.
"There," he said. "Locked and concealed. Unless you wish to send any of your companions out, you will not find a more private room in the Peak than this one."
Rhodri shook her head with thanks and hiked her sleeve up, producing her dagger again with her spare hand. The tip of the blade, sharpened by Rhodri under Zevran's careful instruction, gleamed as it was brought into position, ready to be plunged into the bare forearm. A sense of urgency whose cause Zevran couldn't quite pinpoint compelled him to stride over before the intended vein could be opened and rest a hand on her shoulder.
"Rhodri."
His low, quick request for her attention was indulged immediately, and Avernus' background groan appeared to go ignored, Zevran noted with relief, by Rhodri as well as himself. Rhodri held the knife blade down by her side, bending down to meet him with a nod.
"Sic, dulcis?" she murmured warmly. "I'm listening. Tell me."
What did Zevran want? To stop his lover from seeking lifesaving treatment? To impart the revolutionary information that slicing along a large blood vessel would cause immense bleeding? To warn her against dying from a haemorrhage, just in case she thought it might be a brilliant idea on the surface? What , for heaven's sake?
Praying briefly that the next words out of his mouth would be reasonable (it had happened once before; why couldn't it happen a second time?), Zevran steeled himself with a breath, and smiled.
"Before you get that blood pumping, I thought perhaps I might nominate myself to monitor your progress?" He touched a hand to his chest, "After all, I am quite the expert at knowing when too much blood has been lost, if I do say so myself."
There was something curiously stirring about his suggestion being met with an instant nod from Rhodri. No questions, no concerns. No need to even follow up with another joke, or a saucy remark to minimise himself. Perhaps even the first little quip had been unnecessary. It was hard to say, and likely not worth the effort to examine in any great detail.
Instead, Zevran smoothed down his cloak and took his place by Rhodri's left side, only for said Warden to move over to his left.
"I have to slice the left arm," she explained with an apologetic nod. "Sorry, I know it's different, but it's better that you're further away from the blood."
When everyone was situated, Morrigan marched up and announced, with a beady eye going in Avernus' direction, that she would be doing today's blood extraction. Avernus was allowed to fetch the receptacle of his choice, if he wished to help. This was met with a grumble from the (extremely) elder mage, but for reasons unknown to anyone but himself and perhaps Morrigan, he complied, taking a largish pot from a nearby bookshelf and putting it beside Rhodri.
"I assume you have some experience in this, young lady?" Avernus enquired pointedly.
Morrigan rolled her eyes at him. "If you have to ask…"
"Oh, very well," he snapped. "I suppose if we fail on this occasion, I shall do it myself tomorrow." From there, Avernus rapidly issued a list of complex instructions for the drawing process, during which time Zevran proceeded to learn and then instantly forget a number terms he had never heard prior to the conversation. Morrigan's uninterested facade fell away as she took it all in with a nod.
When the instructions had been fully imparted, two shields billowed up without warning around Zevran and Leliana. They hadn't been done by Rhodri, Zevran knew: outside of combat, Rhodri always asked permission first– and with the way Rhodri had let out a shout, sprang to her feet with her staff at the ready, and stormed over to Avernus, it could reasonably be presumed that he had been the one to do it.
"YOU WILL NOT," she yelled, far louder than she had at Alistair, "CAST SPELLS ON ANY MEMBER OF MY PARTY WITHOUT ASKING THEM FIRST! HOW DARE YOU!"
Avernus, entirely unshaken by the noisy dressing-down, waved a dismissive hand.
"Sit down, you fool," he said tiredly. "You cannot sustain a shield spell while your blood is being drawn, and they need protection. What were you going to do for them, hmm? Drape a cloak over them and hope for the best?"
"We were going to decide as a group what would be done first. If they wanted the spell, I would have asked you to cast it, otherwise I would have had them leave the room for their safety." Rhodri pointed a finger at him, her nose wrinkling in a snarl, "Remove the spell and ask them what they want. Now."
Avernus, once again demonstrating an uncanny resemblance to Morrigan (in fact, did they have the same eye colour, or was Zevran just imagining it?) rolled his eyes for what must have been the twelfth time that day.
"Perfectly ridiculous waste of mana," he groused. "And they are not protesting, see?"
"I WILL NOT TELL YOU A SECOND TIME!" she roared, summoning a small ball of lightning in her hand.
Avernus shook his head and deactivated the spell; the barriers flickered out. Rhodri waved the lightning away and hastened back to where Zevran and Leliana stood, running wide eyes over the both of them.
"You're all right?" she asked them both in an urgent whisper. "I know it was only a shield, but still."
No shared look was required for the pair of rogues to assure Rhodri, in their most mellow, soothing voices, that there was absolutely no trouble whatsoever.
"It shouldn't have happened to you," she shook her head vigorously. "Mages unnerve most Thedosians at the best of times, even without a surprise spell. I'm sorry, I should have made a plan for you sooner–"
"For fuck's sake," came Avernus' penetratingly reedy (and apparently profanity-inclined) voice, cutting her off. "Can we get on with the blood draw, please, before the Taint does finally claim me?" He caught Rhodri's sharp look and tutted. "You can save your glares. Truly, I do not know how a person can be both extremely simpering and abrasive in the same breath, but somehow you manage. You are absolutely unbearable."
"No-o-o," Zevran purred before he could stop himself, and let his fingers wander to his hip-dagger, "I think you must have the wrong person." He glanced over at Rhodri and upon finding himself the subject of a very puzzled expression (was it so unthinkable that someone might not stand for that sort of talk?), he turned back to Avernus. "Let me assure you from firsthand experience, our lovely Grey Warden here is irresistible on all counts."
In the corner of Zevran's eye, Rhodri's bemusement evaporated, giving way to wide eyes and cheeks the colour of fortified wine. He grinned, mostly inwardly at first, but then very much outwardly as Avernus gave a resigned sigh.
"Since I have to do everything my-bloody-self, do you two," he waved a finger between Zevran and Leliana, "want the same shield I just put on you, or will you get out of the room?"
"Shield, please," they answered in chorus.
"Right. And you," he turned to Morrigan now. "Do you want one, too?"
When Morrigan returned in a voice of pure venom that she could do her own shields perfectly well, Avernus rolled his eyes at her, a gesture that was returned with equal, optic nerve-snapping force. Another two shields bubbled up around Zevran and Leliana, and after letting his eyes adjust to the slight shift in colour, Zevran advised Rhodri to start when ready. Rhodri nodded and pulled out her dagger, making only the barest wince (did he wince as she did it? Surely not) as she carved a thin, deep line up her forearm. A jet of dark blood pulsed out of the wound that was caught in mid-air by hands unseen– though the caster was in full view. Morrigan, who looked as unbothered as Zevran wished he felt, tilted her staff ever-so-slightly and arranged the stream, stray droplets and all, into a neat rope that gracefully wound its way down into the receptacle provided.
There was something uniquely unsettling about watching someone bleed when they shouldn't. In the context of an assassination (was there any other context, really?), it invariably meant that either an innocent or a co-worker had been injured. Both instances were undesirable, but the latter could often be fatal if nothing was done. Who, after all, fought as hard or as filthy as a cornered mark? Even the slightest weakness could be capitalised on to completely turn the tides of an assassination attempt, and as Zevran watched the blood stream out of Rhodri's arm, it verged on impossible not to throw a knife into Avernus' eyesocket and pour a healing potion down the haemorrhaging Warden's gullet.
He couldn't have been more than fifteen, Zevran mused as he re-sheathed his knives and strode over. Stringy, as people of that age tended to be, with a mop of sandy blonde hair that was stained red and stuck to his white, clammy face. Whatever of his face his mother wasn't shielding with her own body, anyway. From what little Zevran could see, the boy's breaths were coming fast, so shallow that the flash of shoulder not obscured by the woman was near-motionless.
"What the fuck are you doing?" Taliesen jogged over to him, his brows drawn in a deep frown.
Zevran quirked a brow back at his lover, saying nothing as he fished out a few bandages and held them out to the woman by his feet. Her grip on the boy tightened as she eyed the gauze.
"Take them," Zevran prompted after a moment. "With fluids, I think he may survive."
The woman's eyes filled with tears, but neither of her hands released the boy to take the bandages. Amid a fresh round of complaints from Taliesen (which also went unacknowledged), Zevran shook the bandages a little.
"Time is of the essence," he urged. "He will not live if you put it off. Take the bandages and wrap them around his wounds."
"Maker's fucking–" Taliesen groaned. "Can you please, for once, act like an assassin?"
Zevran curled his lip and nodded at the boy. "Collateral damage does no favours for the House, Taliesen. You were a fool to bring that powder bomb into a market square."
"I picked what does the job quickest and erases evidence," Taliesen spat, and after administering a shove that sent Zevran (and the bandages) stumbling, he whipped out a knife and cut the boy's throat clean open. The woman let out a scream that would have crumbled glass and threw herself over the boy completely before Taliesen could go in with a stab to the heart. He stood there, shaking his head.
"It's a mercy killing," he said, seemingly more to himself than the woman, and turned on his heel and left the market square.
Zevran slowly got to his feet, the sense of urgency all but gone. The woman was clutching the boy to her body, wailing straight into his ear; he showed no sign of noticing it, let alone being distressed by it. If he was still here at all, Zevran mused, it was by a single, fraying thread.
With a sigh, he walked over to the woman and surprised himself by putting a hand on her shoulder. There was a pang of something– what was it?- as she recoiled at the touch; Zevran pulled away.
"You should close his eyes," he said to her gently. "Pray for him."
Not of a mind to remain to see if his suggestions had been noted, Zevran turned and followed after Taliesen, quietly bracing himself for an argument when he got home.
When the pool of donated blood completely covered the bottom of the pot, Zevran held up a hand.
"This is enough," he said. Avernus made a noise of protest.
"There is barely over a pint in there!" he complained. "Look at the size of her! She still has colour in her cheeks, even!"
Ignoring Avernus, Zevran turned to Rhodri, who was watching him curiously.
"I do feel well, still," she said gently. "No different than before. Would it be dangerous to give just a little more?"
"... Perhaps not," he said after a moment. "But I would be careful not to be much more generous than you have been."
Rhodri nodded; the blood kept flowing. After the (admittedly hurried) count of fifteen, Zevran spoke up again, and Rhodri sealed the wound immediately. He plied her with all the healing potions he had on his person while Avernus added various tinctures and ointments to the blood, and finished by putting a heavy lid on the pot.
"Well, thank you for your donation," he eventually offered. "I do believe this will be enough for what I need."
"I can give more at a later time if it's needed," Rhodri replied as she got to her feet– steadily, Zevran noticed with relief.
"I may take you up on that. Now, I suppose a reward is warranted, so if you'll come this way…"
Rhodri frowned. "I didn't give you blood in the hopes of a reward, Avernus. You needed it and I offered."
Avernus paused at his desk, staring at her for a time until something in his head appeared to fall into place.
"... Right," he said. "Well, fetch that green pot from the shelf over there," he pointed a stubby, dry finger at yet another shelf full of multicoloured receptacles.
Rhodri did as instructed, bringing the pot to his feet and standing with her hands folded behind her back.
"If you have been paying attention to your surroundings," Avernus took the lid off the pot and for a moment, the air above the pot darkened and rippled like it was rotting, "I imagine you will have seen quite a few of these pots and bottles around the place."
"I have," Rhodri replied. "I opened one to sniff it. Alistair nearly vomited on us," she gestured between herself and Zevran.
Avernus froze. "You… 'sniffed it?'" he echoed.
"Mmm. It wasn't good."
A long silence played out as Avernus alternated between looking at the pot, then at Rhodri, and then very, very longingly at the door leading outside.
"... Perhaps I have actually died and gone straight to the Void," he said numbly.
"You haven't," Rhodri assured him.
"... Oh, good." He wiped a hand over his face and shook his head. "Well, in any case, you found bottled Warden blood."
"We assumed as much, yes."
"I see. Come on, then, step forward and we'll get this over with." Rhodri gestured at the pot and opened her mouth, only to fall silent as Avernus spoke again, "This particular pot contains the life essence of roughly five Wardens. I used as much on myself the first time I extended my lifespan. Expose the sternum down to the third rib, and if you are wearing anything white, be prepared for a long night of scrubbing."
Rhodri dutifully unfastened her robes and stood ready. Morrigan walked over to Zevran and Leliana, gesturing that she would cast a shield, and did so when they nodded in agreement.
"This should not be painful," he said, almost boredly, as he waved his staff and a cloud of black, viscous blood rose from the pot and hovered in the air. "You may feel the urge to laugh, this does not make you morally reprehensible. Try not to spit, scream, or fling things in my direction. Are you ready?"
"I am."
"Right. Three-two-one, and in we go…" Avernus' hands moved in the same rhythmic fashion of the Antivan net makers, deftly weaving knot after identical knot without pause, and the blood coursed through the air and made an entry point into the exposed part of Rhodri's chest.
Naturally, it was better to watch blood going into someone than out of them, but the situation– to look at, at least– was still less-than-ideal. In a perfect world, people had as much blood as they needed and it stayed that way. But when had the world ever been anywhere close to perfect? The stream of blood burrowed into her sternum, and though Rhodri's eyes widened and a gasp audibly squeaked out of her, things seemed more or less acceptable.
A few seconds in, she reddened all over. Her fingers, her face, even her sclera turned bloodshot. That was normal, though, wasn't it? Surely an infusion of blood would make a person more plump and juicy-looking than usual. Zevran frowned a little, and it wasn't until he caught the skin on her cheeks beginning to bubble, that a thrill of terror whipped through him.
"She is burning," he choked to Morrigan. "Stop– stop him!"
"A little left to go," Avernus said idly, "We can heal you afterward."
Rhodri's fingers clenched; a few of the blisters burst open, and a watery mixture of blood and blister fluid dripped to the floor. Her eyes screwed shut; red tears leaked through and down her cheeks, and that wretched bastarding lyrium cough started again. Off to his left, Leliana prayed fervently.
"Morrigan–" Zevran began again, and made to dash out, but Morrigan took his arm in a vise grip.
"Stay where you are," she warned. "'Tis too dangerous to intervene now."
"She is burning!" he said in a near-shout. "Rhodri–!"
"I am aware." Morrigan gripped her staff (and his arm) with white knuckles. "Wait."
'Wait,' she said. What a stupid idea that was. At this rate, Rhodri was going to turn into one enormous blood blister, pop, and that would be the end of her– and, when it came to that, it would be the end of Zevran, too. How interrupting a dangerous spell encouraged further woe was hard to know, but when he sternly reminded himself of the myriad occasions that Morrigan had been right in the face of his hysterical alarm and he, very obviously, had been wrong, he managed to root his flighty feet to the ground and watch the last few moments of the foul transfusion.
When Avernus finally lowered his staff, Rhodri was bleeding from every visible part of her body and coughing fitfully. Morrigan ordered Zevran, who was already lunging into a run at that point, that he was to stay behind the barrier until healing was complete, under pain of a grisly death. Luckily for the witch, she was out of there faster than he could have shoved her out there himself, and was already casting. In an unexpected but touching gesture, Leliana took Zevran's hand in hers and squeezed it; Zevran's shoulders, he was surprised to note, had been up around his ears until that point, but now they were starting to loosen
Avernus regarded the entire scene with a puzzled frown, greedily harvesting the blood that oozed out of Rhodri while Morrigan attended to her. After what felt like years, the barrier dropped, and Rhodri, though scrubbing the dried blood off her with a grimace, looked entirely intact underneath.
"You," Avernus pointed at Zevran. "Did you encourage taking less blood because you knew of this?"
"Knew of what?" Zevran curled his lip. "That you would cast improperly and scald her from the inside out? I do hate to disappoint, but I am one of the few Alienage elves incapable of fortune telling."
Avernus scoffed. "I did no such thing. The spell was done perfectly. It would seem that something in the blood affected her."
"Lyrium," Rhodri spoke up in a rasp. Avernus' eyebrows shot up.
"Ah!" He folded his arms. "You have the affliction, do you? Yes, that would explain a great deal. I use a little lyrium in the mixture, you see. The preservation glyph can feed off two drops of lyrium for a good fifty years before I need to top it up again." Avernus rubbed his chin, "I suppose if you were able to sniff the other bottle and not burn your nostrils out, the glyph wore off those ones before I could get around to replacing them. In which case, if you would stay a little longer at the Peak to give some more blood before you leave, I would be very much obliged."
Rhodri gave a weak nod, which Avernus acknowledged with perfunctory thanks as he beetled away to his desk and started scratching out notes in an open book there.
"Enquire… about… potential… lyrium affliction… before transfusion…" he mumbled aloud, "harvest… under one pint… beforehand… extract remained… while bleeding afterward." With a satisfied nod to Maker-knew-who, Avernus turned back to Rhodri.
"Expect nightmares tonight," he said calmly, "and possibly large influxes of energy. Needs of all sorts will rise sharply, so have plenty of food and the like on hand. If your body feels like it is vibrating, it probably is, and there's nothing to do for it."
"I see," she cleared her throat gingerly. "And when will I need to refresh this spell?"
Avernus laughed and waved a hand. "Long after I am dead, I'm sure. I first cast this spell at forty-three and didn't need another for a hundred years."
A small twitter of excitement erupted among the four of them; Morrigan, if Zevran didn't know better, looked like she was seriously considering becoming a Warden herself– frankly, so was Zevran at this point.
"Eh-h-h? One hundred years?" Rhodri echoed, her eyebrows disappearing into her hairline.
He smiled smugly. "Indeed. The spell, in my experience, halves in efficacy with each renewed attempt, but that should leave you plenty of time to do what you must." With a satisfied sigh, he smoothed out his robes. "Well, there's your prize. I'll be taking a bath now, so…" he gestured in the direction of the door. "See you tomorrow or the next day, perhaps."
Rhodri offered a stiff nod in reply, and after apologising to Zevran that hand-holding would be unsafe at this time, led the way to the door. An unexpected, Avernus-like yelp of pain and a stream of foul language had them turn around in time to see a decidedly cheerful-looking Morrigan bringing up the rear, gaily spinning her staff from hand to hand. Behind her, Avernus was grumbling curses that went two hundred years up Morrigan's family tree and rubbing his flank.
"You didn't jab him in the kidney, Morrigan," Rhodri said as they stepped outside. "Did you?"
"I most certainly did," the witch purred. "And I shall do it again, given the opportunity."
Rhodri sighed. "Why, though?"
Morrigan took her staff and scraped it along the balustrade, driving the untouched piles of snow over the edge and into the ravine below. When Rhodri prompted her again, she smirked and said with a shrug, "He was absolutely unbearable."
Cultural note on names in Tevinter:
Tevinter name order goes: Honorific, then family name first, given name second, and any middle names last. Rhodri, for example, would introduce herself as Magister Hereditas Callistus Severin Rhodri Amell. People often address each other by their family name until invited to do otherwise. Rhodri would be considered unusually courteous for using typical Thedosian name order as she did in front of Zevran at the bank; most Tevinters simply use the Tevinter naming order and happily let confusion ensue.
Language note (Tevene):
Magister Hereditas- the title of the next-in-line Tevinter Magisters. Rhodri and her father, Aurelio, both carry this title. Upon official appointment to the Tevinter Magisterium, they are simply referred to as Magister, e.g. Magister Callistus Adria- known as Rhodri's grandmother, Magister Adria Callistus